Outdoor Dining In The Sacramento Region

Springtime brings many things: warmer weather, flowers and plants as well as the gardening & cleanup that goes along with those things, kids looking forward to summer break (those who get one), the concert season, tomato season in Sacramento, NBA basketball championships (sorry Sacramento) & March Madness, allergies (achoo) vacation planning…..so many other things.

And one of my favorites each year. outdoor dining!

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s Sacramento actually had an ordinance prohibiting sidewalk seating. All we had was restaurants like the Firehouse that had enclosed patios.

We had to go to San Francisco to actually enjoy sidewalk dining, and it was such a treat. Almost a taboo! People fought real hard to get the city to approve sidewalk dining.

Now we have so many choices, from simple fare to fine dining. Lunchtime and dinner and late night dining as well.

Downtown, midtown, East Sacramento and all regions in the city and the county as well as surrounding area like West Sacramento, Folsom, Elk Grove, Roseville, down the Sacramento River, up the American River. Who does not have at least one restaurant with sidewalk dining?

There are so many outdoor dining spots it i hard to pick your favorite. If the choice is favorite place to eat outside my is…still the Firehouse.

If the choice is limited to sidewalk eatingit is a little more difficult to choose for some reason.

Well we can choose an alley-walk rather than a sidewalk and pick Old Soul 1716 L Street, rear alley.

If the choice is a real sidewalk I would pick Three Sisters on J Street with their wonderful dining area with a bit of a wall next to the sidewalk or 33rd Street Bistro on Folsom Boulevard. I enjoy both of these places, they have different styles of food but both try hard to provide good service and quality food.

What other places outdoors?

Well, check out the recent article in the Sacramento Beefor a lot of selections, all good. It got me thinking about the subject, made me quite hungry and led to this post.

They list some places that I enjoy like

Mulvaneys, 1215 19th Street

Restaurant Thir13en, 1300 H Street

Juno’s Kitchen & Deli, 3675 J Street

Paesano’s 1806 Capitol Avenue

Zocalo, right down the street at 1801 Capitol Avenue

and many more that I still must try out.

What other places? Leave me comments here or Tweet me @zenDR and tell me about your favorite joints, where and why.